A blog by Tim George. Follow my other work at http://www.tewahanui.nz/by/tim.george, http://www.denofgeek.com/authors/tim-george, theatrescenes.co.nz, and theragnz.com.

Thursday, 18 June 2015

007 directors who should make a Bond movie

Everyone talks about how Christopher Nolan should direct a Bond movie. Three hours long, over-complicated and no humour? No thanks! Here is a list of directors who will probably never get a shot at the director's chair, but who I would personally like to see direct a future instalment of the franchise.Ben Wheatley

Known primarily for his crime/headfuck epic Kill List and the super-violent black comedy Sightseers, at first Wheatley might seem too niche to get on the Broccolis' radar.However, he recently directed the first two episodes of the new series of Dr. Who, which is about as far from psycho hitmen and psycho holiday-makers as you can get. After his work on Who, Wheatley might be more willing to dip his toe in the waters of another British franchise. With his penchant for genre-bending, he might be able to jostle the franchise out of its adherence to the formula, and make a few changes that might stick for future instalments. Also, he's experienced with low budgets and works really fast so he could probably make five Bond flicks for about a fifth of the reported 300+ million they're currently shilling out on Spectre.John Michael McDonagh

If you have had the pleasure of watching McDonough's 2011 buddy comedy The Guard, McDonough's penchant for whip-smart comedy and clever inversion of genre archetypes would be perfect for Bond. He could bring the belly laughs, while also maintaining the pathos of the Craig era. He would also probably cast Brendan Gleeson as Bond, which is a good thing. You can never go wrong with more Gleeson.

Jee-woon Kim

Having shown off his talents in a variety of genres (The Good, The Bad & The Weird, I Saw The Devil), this guy could either deliver the best Roger Moore movie of all time, or the darkest, most f***ed-up Dalton movie imaginable. While his Arnie vehicle The Last Stand was a bit of a damp squib, Bond would be the perfect playground for his demented sensibility. If you need a taste of what his Bond might look like, watch A Bittersweet Life. A stylish, violent and blackly comic action film about an emotionally stunted hitman who wears impeccable dark suits, it is basically an audition piece.

Nicolas Winding Refn

The Bond of the books is not known for spouting one liners. He does not really talk at all, to be honest. This dour, monosyllabic characterisation is right in the wheelhouse of Mr. Refn, who has made a career out of chronicling the exploits of dour, monosyllabic killers. Combined with the villains' penchant for ultra-violence and sexual deviance, Refn might be the perfect choice for a stripped down R-rated take on Bond.

Neveldine/Taylor

If the Broccolis ever lose their minds, they could do worse than hand the reins to these maniacs. Guaranteed to deliver the most racist, sexist and insane movie imaginable, these guys could quite possibly deliver the most faithful version of Ian Fleming's creation ever. While previous filmmakers have moved the character away from his less appealing attributes, Neveldine and Taylor would probably push them to their most cartoonish extreme. They would probably also be onboard for adapting some of the more gonzo sequences and characters from the books, such as Blofeld's Garden of Death (You Live Only Twice) and Dr. No drowning in a landslide of guano.Shion Sono

If the Broccolis ever lose their minds and then spontaneously combust, Sono might have a shot. Known chiefly for his 4 hour-long epic Love Exposure (2008), Sono is capable of taking a grab bag of seemingly random influences, story threads and themes, and blending them together into a cohesive whole. Since most Bond scripts are a random assemblage of elements, this might be right in Sono's wheelhouse.

The Coen Brothers

This is pie-in-the-sky wish fulfilment. Re-reading the Bond books at the start of this year, I was struck by how Coen-esque Fleming's world was -- the bizarre characters, the random bursts of violence, the moments of surrealism, the screaming fat men -- somehow, I feel like this is the perfect marriage of filmmaker to material. They've already done their ode to Raymond Chandler with The Big Lebowski. They could perform the same magic on Bond. In the books, Bond's consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and Benzedrine (amphetamines) is so excessive, he's basically the Dude without the good vibes.